The science of becoming a better wife and mother.

Remember when I gave you a little teaser in this post of the project I was working on? I had been searching for the right night stand for quite a while when my in-laws found themselves with a bed side table they didn’t need anymore. I think they were a little confused as to why I wanted an old nightstand with rickety drawers, but they graciously humored me and allowed me to have it. It started out like this:

I forgot to take a photo before the hardware came off, but you can see the outline of the old decorative brass pulls that were once a part of this gem. The stain had that yellowish tint to it that I can’t stand at all, but the construction was solid and I liked the basic design.

What I didn’t anticipate is how long it would take to sand such a small piece of furniture! I worked on it over the course of three days, and my best guesstimate is about 10 hours worth of work. So maybe I would have been better off just buying a new piece, but where is the fun in that? It definitely wasn’t a perfect sanding job, but my fingers could barely grip the sander by the end of it so I finally just had to call it quits.

The post-sanding photo is the one I let you see in the post mentioned above. That was almost a year ago. It got cold and rainy after that so I had a difficult time finding a day when I wasn’t working and the weather was good. Because the sanding was so labor intensive I also imagined the staining process to be a major time commitment. So I put it off, telling myself in the spring I would pick it back up. It didn’t help that I put it next to the bed and started using it, though I did cover it with a sheet in an attempt to preserve my 10 hours of labor.

Spring came and went and still the nightstand stayed in its unstained condition. For my birthday (July) I told Adam I wanted him to buy me the stain and supplies to finish, as well as allow me a day to focus just on this project. My birthday came and went and finally in August we bought the needed supplies. In September I found myself home one day with beautiful weather and no plans. I declared that I would finish the night stand. Adam suggested I stain inside, rather than carrying the heavy piece outside, so I put down my drop cloth, opened all the windows, and started to stain.

Just as I was shocked by the 10 hours of sanding, I was equally shocked that it only took me about 30 minutes to apply a coat of stain. It went on smoothly didn’t even require a sanding between coats. I applied two coats and was grateful I picked the stain + polyurethane mix. After just 1 hour of work (with a few hours of wait time in between) the piece was almost complete! The hardware went on in minutes, and this is what I ended up with:

I still need to put the new drawer runners on, but cosmetically it is finished. I am so happy with the way it turned out, and even though it took me almost a year from start to finish I am glad I took on the project. I showed my in-laws when they came to visit last and my mother in law responded “well now I want it back!”

Have you worked on or completed any DIY projects recently? Tell me about it or link to your post in the comments.